Month: December 2016

London properties should be uncoupled from the national business rates system to prevent companies in the capital being treated as a cash cow, say the capital’s businesses.

Businesses in London could be forced to stump up an extra £4bn over the next five years under an upcoming revaluation, which has led the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry to call for the capital to have a separate business rates system or risk a “profound” impact on the capital’s economy.

The extra rates burden could force small, independent shops, bars and restaurants, which are already reeling from rocketing rents, to close down or move to cheaper locations, the LCCI has warned.

Property values in London have soared since the last revaluation in 2008, meaning that many businesses will be hit with rocketing bills under the new regime.

Business rates are often the third largest outgoing for companies after salaries and rents.

In total, the extra burden for London could be as much as £885m a year because of an upcoming revaluation, due in April, as companies across the city face an average rise of 11pc.

Few other places have seen values rise so significantly, with the result that businesses in the capital will pay disproportionately more than elsewhere in the UK. St Pancras Station will face the biggest jump in rates, paying £10.1m a year, an increase of £21.5m, or 73pc, over the next five years, exclusive analysis for The Telegraph by CVS, the business rates specialist, has found.

The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel also faces a £13.5m jump in its rates bill over the next five years while the demand on the BBC for Broadcasting House in Portland Place will rise by £19.5m.

Harrods, Selfridges and John Lewis will also face steep rises, CVS calculated. Some West End retailers and office occupiers in Shoreditch will see bills more than double as a result of the delayed revaluation, which was held back for two years to prevent the changes from taking effect just before the last general election.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has proposed a relief scheme that would limit increases for business to 42pc in a year. This has been considered as woefully inadequate by critics who have highlighted that in the last business rates revaluation, rises were capped at 12.5pc.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the LCC, said: “The Government should consider proposals for London to be ‘uncoupled’ from the national valuation system that gives London’s businesses an unfair deal.

“We are not asking for special treatment for London nor do we seek to implement changes that will see the rest of the country lose out, but at the same time we do not want to risk businesses shutting up shop or moving out of London altogether.

“We need to be wary of potential pitfalls including business being viewed as a ‘cash cow’,” Mr Stanbridge said.

The LCCI says there is a case for “substantive” changes to the rates system, including breaking the link between revaluations and the fixed tax yield it generates. Doing so would prevent what the chamber described as “punitive rises” in the future.

According to the LCCI, the new rates will hit small- and medium-sized businesses particularly hard, as they are less able to find the resources to pay the higher bills.

There has also been criticism of the Government’s plans to reform the business rates appeals process, which will mean that companies have to pay their rates bills for an entire year, even if the bill is incorrect.

More than 160 investors in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) have asked the bank to create a committee of shareholders to improve its corporate governance and help avoid a repeat of mistakes that led to its 45 billion pound ($55 billion) bailout.

ShareSoc and UKSA, two shareholder groups, will submit the proposal at the bank’s next annual meeting in May, with the aim of improving the lot of long-term investors who have seen RBS shares fall more than 95 percent since their 2007 peak.

The shareholders said their aims were to improve the representation of individual retail investors in how the bank is run and to avoid a repeat of past mistakes.
“A dominant CEO; concealing the true financial position of the company from investors; proceeding with a reckless acquisition; and then publishing a rights prospectus which concealed the problems faced by the company,” Mark Northway, Sharesoc Chairman, said in describing those mistakes.

RBS could not immediately be reached for comment.

For the resolution to pass, it would need at least 75 percent of shareholder votes cast at the meeting. That means the government, which holds 71 percent of shares in the bank, would need to support it or abstain for it to go through.

A spokesman for UKFI, which manages the government stake, declined to comment on how UKFI might vote.

Shareholder committees are largely unheard of in Britain, though are a staple of corporate governance in Sweden, where they nominate who should sit on a company’s board.

RBS is still in the throes of a restructuring, which includes asset sales, job cuts and tackling multi-billion dollar charges to settle litigation and pay regulatory fines for past misconduct.

The bank said this month it will pay more than 800 million pounds to settle claims by four investor groups that the bank misled them during a 12 billion pound fundraising at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

RBS along with other banks also faces an investigation by the United States Department of Justice over its sale and pooling of toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the crisis.

Imagine coming up with the next Uber, Airbnb, Instagram or Snapchat. How do you know when you have thought of the next billion-dollar idea?

Hospitality mogul and star of CNBC’s “Billion Dollar Buyer” Tilman Fertitta, who meets with entrepreneurs nationwide looking for the most innovative products to add to his portfolio, told Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith in the video above the key characteristics he looks for when identifying the next big business idea.

“Look at edgy products,” said Landry. “There are so many young millennial entrepreneurs out there right now coming up with different products…. You’re looking for somebody that can scale up, that has a unique product that people want. It can be anything. Being in casinos, restaurants, hotels, aquariums and amusement parks, we buy everything, so we’re just looking for that one unique product.”

Fertitta has a proven track record of success over the last four decades. He’s the sole-owner of dining, entertainment, gaming and hospitality group Landry’s, which is comprised of more than 500 properties including the Rainforest Café, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Chart House and McCormick & Schmick’s. Fertitta’s a self-made billionaire with an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion.

Don’t be fooled though, it takes much more than just a “unique” product to turn a billion-dollar idea into a prosperous business. Fertitta says key traits that separate successful entrepreneurs from those that fail include passion, perseverance and effective management.

“It’s really about knowing all facets of your business,” he said. “Know your numbers and never give up. And when you get kicked down, keep picking yourself up.”

Employees at an Iowa cabinet company are about to get a sunny reprieve from the winter cold, all thanks to the boss. All of the more than 800 employees of Bertch Cabinets in Waterloo, Iowa will get a free trip to the Caribbean next month. company president Gary Bertch said “We leave January 8, We’ve got four charter aircraft that will be flying directly to Miami Sunday and staying at a nice five-star hotel. Then on Monday, we’ll bus over from the hotel to the port and load up on the ship.” Bertch told his employees the trip was a reward for them after the company meet its goals for the year.

Union Square Cafe is the restaurant that led Danny Meyer to open a slew of hits including Gramercy Tavern, 11 Madison Park and Shake Shack. Meyer opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 and the restaurant thrived until a major rent increase forced him to relocate. Bloomberg Pursuits restaurant editor Kate Krader sat down with Danny Meyer at Union Square Cafe’s new Manhattan location as he was putting on the finishing touches before opening night.

Enlarge ImageEcho devices dominated holiday shopping lists from November 1 to December 19. Amazon Prime is really giving Santa Claus a run for his money. The Seattle-based retailer giant shipped more than 1 billion items around the world for the holiday season, more than five times its sales last holiday season, between November 1 to December 19. The Echo Dot was the most coveted gift out of the hundreds of millions of items shipped from Amazon, which quickly sold out. “Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock,” Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Consumers said.

The South Korean smartphone maker’s flagship Galaxy Note 7 device came to market ahead of the latest iPhone and sales were brisk, until reports started coming in of handsets overheating and catching fire.

Recalls and battery changes failed to fix the problem; airlines banned the phones from their flights, and Samsung eventually had to make the decision to stop producing its star product.

“Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher is in critical condition in a Los Angeles hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack on an overseas flight from London. Today, fans and co-stars are sharing their thoughts and prayers on social media. Ben Tracy reports.

This isn’t your typical snow fort. Italian architect Luca Roncoroni travelled to the Arctic Circle to design this Victorian Ice Suite for the Icehotel 365 in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, where rooms can cost $1,000 a night. It took nearly 10 tons of ice and roughly 135 hours to hand-carve every detail. Bloomberg Pursuits watches him work, from start to finish, in one magical minute.

A statue is pictured next to the logo of Germany’s Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany September 30, 2016. Deutsche Bank has agreed to a $7.2 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over its sale and pooling of toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. The agreement in principle, announced by Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters early Friday morning, offers some relief to the German lender, whose stock was hit hard in September after it acknowledged the Justice Department had been seeking nearly twice as much.

The £440m project will connect properties in rural parts of the UK to services “which are at the heart of modern life”.

Around 600,000 extra homes and businesses are in line for superfast broadband services, it has been announced.

Some £440m will be used to connect properties in the hardest-to-reach parts of the UK under the Broadband Delivery UK programme (BDUK), Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said.

The announcement comes a month after Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged £1bn of Government investment in “full-fibre” broadband, a handout which means at least two million more homes and businesses could get access to speeds of more than 1Gbps.

Last week, the Government also faced calls to “play an active role” in the future rollout of 5G, as a report revealed that Albania and Peru have better mobile phone coverage than the UK.

Ministers set up the BDUK project to provide superfast broadband to 95% of the UK by December 2017.

Ms Bradley said the programme is providing homes and businesses with “fast and reliable internet connections which are increasingly at the heart of modern life”.

She said: “Strong take-up and robust value-for-money measures mean £440m will be available for reinvestment where it matters – putting more connections in the ground.

“This will benefit around 600,000 extra premises and is a further sign of our commitment to build a country that works for everyone.”
The fund is made up of £150m in savings from “careful contract management” and £292m released through a clawback system that reinvests money when people take up superfast connections installed under the scheme.

“Increasing take-up is a win-win-win: consumers get a better service, it encourages providers to invest, and when more people sign up in BDUK areas, money is clawed back to pay for more connections.”

BT said the investment in superfast broadband is “a huge success story for the UK”, adding that the BDUK project “shows exactly what can be achieved through close partnerships between the public and private sector”.